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George Griffin (butler)
George H. Griffin was an African-American born into slavery in Baltimore, Maryland in 1849. In 1874, as a free man, Griffin came to work for Samuel L. Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain). Details of Griffin's early life remain largely unknown. But there is much information about Griffin's later life, primarily from Clemens's letters and unpublished memoirs. For example, according to Clemens' unpublished manuscript ''A Family Sketch'', Griffin "was a Maryland slave by birth; the Proclamation set him free, & as a young fellow he saw his fair share of the Civil War as body servant to General Devens". Griffin was a Deacon in the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, active political leader, and family man. He married servant Rhoda Marrian Hayes about 1871, Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartfor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Slavery in the United States, enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of West Africa, West/Central Africa, Central African with some European descent; some also have Native Americans in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was designated an independent city by the Constitution of Maryland in 1851, and today is the most populous independent city in the United States. As of 2021, the population of the Baltimore metropolitan area was estimated to be 2,838,327, making it the 20th largest metropolitan area in the country. Baltimore is located about north northeast of Washington, D.C., making it a principal city in the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area (CSA), the third-largest CSA in the nation, with a 2021 estimated population of 9,946,526. Prior to European colonization, the Baltimore region was used as hunting grounds by the Susquehannock Native Americans, who were primarily settled further northwest than where the city was later built. Colonis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced", and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature". His novels include ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876) and its sequel, ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884), the latter of which has often been called the " Great American Novel". Twain also wrote ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' (1889) and '' Pudd'nhead Wilson'' (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner. Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for ''Tom Sawyer'' and ''Huckleberry Finn''. He served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to the newspaper of his older brother Orion Clemens. He later became a river ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the Civil War. The Proclamation changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free. As soon as slaves escaped the control of their enslavers, either by fleeing to Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, they were permanently free. In addition, the Proclamation allowed for former slaves to "be received into the armed service of the United States." On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Its third paragraph reads: That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Devens
Charles Devens Jr. (April 4, 1820 – January 7, 1891) was an American lawyer, jurist and statesman. He also served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Early life and career Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Devens graduated from Boston Latin School and eventually Harvard College in 1838, and from the Harvard Law School in 1840. He was admitted to the bar in Franklin County, Massachusetts, where he practiced law from 1841 to 1849. In 1848, he was a Whig member of the Massachusetts Senate. From 1849 to 1853, Devens was United States Marshal for Massachusetts, in which capacity he was called upon in 1851 to remand the fugitive slave, Thomas Sims, to slavery. This he felt constrained to do, much against his personal desire; subsequently, he attempted in vain to purchase Sims's freedom, and many years later appointed him to a position in the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Devens practiced law at Worcester, Massachusetts, from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (also known as North Methodist Episcopal Church) is a historic Methodist Episcopal Church at 2051 Main Street in Hartford, Connecticut. This High Victorian Gothic structure was built in 1873-74 for an Episcopal congregation, and has since 1926 been the home to the city's oldest African-American congregation, which was established in 1833. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. Architecture and history The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is located in Hartford north side Clay-Arsenal neighborhood, on the west side of Main Street just north of Mahl Avenue. It is a large 3-1/2 story brick structure with stone trim. A large gable faces the street, with a pair of entrances at opposite ends of the facade. The left entrance is topped by a buttressed tower with belfry and steeple. Windows have Gothic pointed arches, and are set in varying groups and sizes on the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the 2010 United States census have indicated that Hartford is the fourth-largest city in Connecticut with a 2020 population of 121,054, behind the coastal cities of Bridgeport, New Haven, and Stamford. Hartford was founded in 1635 and is among the oldest cities in the United States. It is home to the country's oldest public art museum (Wadsworth Atheneum), the oldest publicly funded park (Bushnell Park), the oldest continuously published newspaper (the ''Hartford Courant''), and the second-oldest secondary school (Hartford Public High School). It is also home to the Mark Twain House, where the author wrote his most famous works and raised his family, among other historically significant sites. Mark Twain wrote in 1868, "Of all the beautifu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn
''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' or as it is known in more recent editions, ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels (''Tom Sawyer Abroad'' and ''Tom Sawyer, Detective'') and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It is a direct sequel to ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer''. The book is noted for "changing the course of children's literature" in the United States for the "deeply felt portrayal of boyhood". It is also known for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim (Huckleberry Finn)
Jim is one of two major fictional characters in the classic 1884 novel ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' by Mark Twain. The book chronicles his and Huckleberry's raft journey down the Mississippi River in the antebellum Southern United States. Jim, who is often referred to in the book as a "nigger," is a black man who is fleeing slavery; "Huck", a 13-year-old white boy, joins him in spite of his own conventional understanding and the law. Character inspiration The character may have been a composite portrait of black men Twain knew, or based on the "shrewd, wise, polite, always good-natured ..." formerly enslaved African-American George Griffin, whom Twain employed as a butler, starting around 1879, and treated as a confidant."After Long Absence, Twain's Butler Is, to Ret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1849 Births
Events January–March * January 1 – France begins issue of the Ceres series, the nation's first postage stamps. * January 5 – Hungarian Revolution of 1848: The Austrian army, led by Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz, enters in the Hungarian capitals, Buda and Pest. The Hungarian government and parliament flee to Debrecen. * January 8 – Hungarian Revolution of 1848: Romanian armed groups massacre 600 unarmed Hungarian civilians, at Nagyenyed.Hungarian HistoryJanuary 8, 1849 And the Genocide of the Hungarians of Nagyenyed/ref> * January 13 ** Second Anglo-Sikh War – Battle of Tooele: British forces retreat from the Sikhs. ** The Colony of Vancouver Island is established. * January 21 ** General elections are held in the Papal States. ** Hungarian Revolution of 1848: Battle of Nagyszeben – The Hungarian army in Transylvania, led by Josef Bem, is defeated by the Austrians, led by Anton Puchner. * January 23 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Medi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1897 Deaths
Events January–March * January 2 – The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City. * January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a punitive expedition against Benin. * January 7 – A cyclone destroys Darwin, Australia. * January 8 – Lady Flora Shaw, future wife of Governor General Lord Lugard, officially proposes the name "Nigeria" in a newspaper contest, to be given to the British Niger Coast Protectorate. * January 22 – In this date's issue of the journal ''Engineering'', the word ''computer'' is first used to refer to a mechanical calculation device. * January 23 – Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only capital case in United States history, where spectral evidence helps secure a conviction. * January 31 – The Czechoslovak Trade Union Association is f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
